The following relates generally to wireless communication, and more specifically to maintaining a wireless communication connection between wireless communication systems or networks. Wireless communications systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, and so on. These systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., time, frequency, and power). Examples of such multiple-access systems include code-division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time-division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency-division multiple access (FDMA) systems, and orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) systems.
Generally, a wireless multiple-access communications system may include a number of base stations, each simultaneously supporting communication for multiple mobile devices. Base stations may communicate with mobile devices on downstream and upstream links. Each base station has a coverage range, which may be referred to as the coverage area of the cell.
Despite continuing improvements in wireless communications, failures may still occur. For example, when establishing a VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) call over LTE (Long Term Evolution), delays in the transmissions of IMS (Internet Protocol (IP) Multimedia Subsystem) messages may cause the RRC (Radio Resource Control) connection for VoLTE (Voice over LTE) call setup to be released. In general, a radio link failure (RLF) may occur at any time and for various reasons, such as signal blockage, movement out of range, etc.
Although some wireless communication devices may be provisioned with multiple radios (e.g., dual radios devices such as SG-LTE (Simultaneous GSM and LTE) devices and SV-LTE (Simultaneous Voice and LTE) devices, many devices may include only a single radio. For single radio devices, an attempt may be made to acquire a cell or channel of an alternate network that uses a different radio access technology (RAT). Even with dual-radio devices, there may be situations where the device may attempt to use a different RAT when an RLF occurs in a primary or current RAT. For example, a dual-radio device may be camped on a single network to conserve power in a standby mode. If an RLF occurs in that network, the dual-radio device may attempt to acquire a cell/channel of another network that uses a different RAT. Switching to another network may cause a considerable delay in service, which may negatively impact user experience. For example, locating or tuning to a cell of the alternate network may be relatively time consuming.